■ New Zealand
Dolphin knocks woman out
A dolphin leaped out of the sea onto a pleasure boat off New Zealand yesterday, knocking a woman holidaymaker unconscious and putting her in hospital with critical head injuries, news reports said. After hitting the 27-year-old woman, the dolphin smashed the boat's glass windscreen, injuring another female passenger as the boat cruised near Slipper Island. Steve Taylor, of the local coastguard, told Radio New Zealand the woman was sitting on the bow of the boat when the dolphin landed on top of her. Experts said it was a freak accident and probably unprecedented for dolphins. The dolphin fell into the sea and swam off.
■ Japan
Dishonest architect jailed
An architect who caused a nationwide scandal by fabricating data about earthquake resistance in buildings was sentenced yesterday to five years in prison. Hidetsugu Aneha, 49, who outraged the quake-prone country by admitting he lied to save money on construction costs, admitted last year that he conspired with inspectors and construction firms.
■ Nepal
`Buddha Boy' returns
A teenage boy hailed as a reincarnation of the Buddha has reappeared after nine months of wandering through the jungles of eastern Nepal, police said yesterday. Ram Bahadur Bomjan, 16, had disappeared in March after he reportedly shunned food and water for almost 10 months while he meditated under a pipal tree in Bara near a holy site in Nepal revered by Hindus and Buddhists. Local officials however expressed skepticism on the fasting claims and said the boy was being used by supporters to fleece funds from villagers.
■ Japan
Woman jailed for loud music
A woman charged with inflicting injury on her neighbor by blasting rock music at her house for more than two years was given a 20-month prison term yesterday, a court official said. Miyoko Kawahara, 59, was sentenced by the Osaka High Court, revoking an initial ruling that had given her a one-year prison term, court spokesman Takanao Kawasaki said. The woman from Heguri, Nara Prefecture, was accused of causing insomnia and headaches to her next-door neighbor by playing loud dance music almost 24 hours a day on a portable stereo she had pointed at her neighbor's house, 6m away.
■ China
Hospital staff under attack
Doctors and nurses at a hospital in Shenzhen have donned combat gear after an incident in which angry relatives of a patient attacked hospital workers, state media reported yesterday. The Shanxia Hospital operated on a patient who suffered from bone fracture after a car accident early this month, but he died 17 days later of heart failure, the Beijing Times reported. The relatives of the patient were outraged at his sudden death and on several occasions mobilized many people to harass hospital staff by scuffling and yelling at them as well as burning paper offerings on the premises.
■ Pakistan
Bomb explodes near airport
A car bomb exploded near the entrance of the airport in Peshawar yesterday, killing one man and wounding two, police said. The explosion went off at 7:10am when the airport was crowded with hundreds of people for flights to and from the Middle East. Iftikhar Khan, a senior police officer, said the bomb was planted in a Suzuki car that was parked near the airport's main entrance and wounded three men, one of whom later died at a hospital. There was no word on how seriously the two other men were hurt. The blast shattered windows of several cars. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
■ Thailand
Businessman shot by thief
An armed thief opened fire at a Christmas party, killing a Canadian businessman and wounding three other people, police said yesterday. Mark Jay Keffer, 42, was celebrating Christmas with his wife and six others on Monday night at a relatives' condominium in Bangkok when a man sneaked into the party from a balcony, Police Lieutenant Colonel Sarawuth Dejsri said. Keffer's wife hit the robber over the head with her handbag as he was collecting 15,000 baht (US$400) and a digital camera from the party guests. The thief became angry and started firing his pistol, killing Keffer and wounding his wife and a couple from Brunei.
■ South Korea
Abstinence campaign started
The government has launched a campaign offering cash to men if they promise not to buy sex from prostitutes after year-end office parties, officials said yesterday. The move is aimed at changing the party culture in the male-dominated society by winning commitments from male employees to abstain from hiring prostitutes after their parties finish, an official at the Gender Equality and Family Ministry said. A total 4.6 million won (US$5,000) will be paid to companies based on the largest number of volunteers who sign a written pledge, said the official. A ministry official said there had been a good response to the campaign, with some 1,300 firms signing up. The campaign ended yesterday.
■ United Kingdom
Fox hunters out in force
Fox hunters took to fields and forests on the year's biggest hunting day yesterday in a show of determination to maintain the tradition despite the ban on the age-old custom of killing foxes with packs of dogs. Organizers laid trails with the smell of foxes, rather than allowing dogs to chase real foxes, to avoid falling foul of the ban imposed nearly two years ago on hunts in England and Wales. The Countryside Alliance, a pro-hunting group, said yesterday's hunt was the biggest ever on Boxing Day, with some 250,000 people attending more than 300 hunts. "Hunting has shown that it will not be broken by the ban," said the alliance's chief executive, Simon Hart, who joined a crowd of 700 at the South Pembrokeshire hunt in Wales.
■ Russia
Bulgakov museum attacked
A museum dedicated to a writer condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church for his authorship of a "Satanic gospel" has been largely destroyed, an official said on Monday. The museum celebrated the life and work of Mikhail Bulgakov, author of Master and Margarita, a satire in which the devil comes to Communist-era Moscow to see if he can do some good. The church said that the book, not published until 26 years after Bulgakov's death in 1940, was "the fifth gospel, that of Satan." A bitter critic of Bulgakov's work last Thursday locked himself in the museum and threw many objects out the window.
■ Russia
A gift to Afghanistan
Moscow could write off about US$10 billion of Afghanistan's Soviet-era debt in February, the lItar-Tass agency quoted Foreign Ministry sources as saying on Monday. A decision to write off the debt piled up during Moscow's nine-year-long invasion in the Asian state, which ended in a withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, was reached at an international conference on Afghanistan in January. But debates on the precise size of the debt and conditions of the deal have slowed the talks. "The sides have effectively finalized the document and expressed readiness to sign it in February," Itar-Tass quoted its source as saying.
■ United States
Arnie faces surgery
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the state for surgery after breaking his leg in an Idaho skiing accident last Saturday in Idaho, a spokeswoman said. Schwarzenegger, 59, was scheduled to undergo non-emergency surgery in Los Angeles yesterday to repair his fractured right femur, spokeswoman Julie Soderlund said on Monday. The procedure will use cables and screws to secure the governor's upper right thigh bone, said Dr. Kevin Ehrhart, the orthopedic surgeon who was to perform the surgery. Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante will serve as acting governor while Schwarzenegger is under anesthesia.
■ Israel
Gaza settlers to get homes
Defense Minister Amir Peretz has approved plans to turn a former army base in the occupied West Bank into a settlement for 30 Jewish settler families evacuated from the Gaza Strip last year, Israel Radio said yesterday. A settler official said fewer than 20 families had been waiting to move into Maskiot under a government promise to build the first permanent housing in the West Bank for Gaza evacuees. The Defense Ministry had no immediate comment on the report.
■ Iraq
Two detainees escape
Two detainees managed to escape from a US-run detention facility in southern Iraq on Christmas Eve, a US military spokesman said yesterday. "What we're looking at is two detainees who escaped at Camp Bucca on Dec. 24," Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Curry said. The escape was an "isolated incident" and "all other detainees have been accounted for," Curry said, declining to give any details about the escape or the identity of the two detainees who got away. Approximately 10,000 detainees are held at Camp Bucca, located near Umm Qasr in the extreme south of Iraq.
■ Saudi Arabia
Ex-Gitmo detainees freed
The kingdom has freed 18 former Guantanamo Bay detainees after they completed their jail sentences, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. The men were among 28 Saudi nationals and one resident handed over this year by the US from the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, it said. Saudi Arabia had released 11 of the men earlier this month. "The remainder, numbering 18 convicts, were freed ... after the necessary conditions were fulfilled," the official Saudi Press Agency said, quoting Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour bin Sultan al-Turki. The kingdom said it would continue efforts to secure the return of other Saudi citizens. It did not say how many Saudis remained in US custody at the prison camp.
■ United States
Brown's widow locked out
James Brown's widow said she was denied access to the home she shared with the singer and their five-year-old son, claiming the gate was padlocked at the request of Brown's lawyer and accountant. Tomi Rae Brown, 36, who was one of James Brown's backup singers, said on Monday she was at a retreat when her 73-year-old husband died shortly after he was hospitalized in Atlanta. When she returned to their home hours after her husband died of heart failure, security guards told her that Brown's lawyer and accountant had said she was not allowed inside.
■ United States
Army baby boom on the way
Fort Campbell, Tennessee, is getting ready for its next baby boom following the return of thousands of soldiers to the Army post after deployment in Iraq. The surge in deliveries -- which is expected to peak to 250 in June from a current level of about a dozen per day -- will come about nine months after 20,000 soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division returned from a yearlong deployment. Blanchfield Army Community Hospital is currently receiving nearly a dozen new expecting mothers each day. The projected boom will shatter the hospital's previous record of 202 in October 2004.
■ United States
Snowzilla II in the making
Snowzilla the snowman is back -- bigger than ever. The original Snowzilla towered 4.8m over Billy Powers' yard in east Anchorage, Alaska, last winter. Now with snow piling up over the past week, Powers is resurrecting the giant figure, supersized. This time he expects it to tower about 7.5m, top hat and all, he said on Monday. "It's a work in progress," Powers said. He expected to have completed Snowzilla II by yesterday. Last year's version, with Alaskan Amber beer bottles for eyes, drew scores of photo-snapping crowds and TV crews from Japan and Russia before it melted in the spring.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not